Dawn awoke to cool fingers softly combing through her hair. Keeping her eyes firmly shut, she clung on to her drowsiness and tried to fall back asleep. Maybe if she pretended she was out cold, she could sleep in a bit longer…

“I can tell you’re awake, you know,” Cal teased.

Drat.

She decided to keep pretending anyway, but Cal was persistent. His touches and quiet murmuring gradually drew her towards wakefulness, so in a last ditch effort, she smooshed her face into his chest and pulled the blanket over her head. Chuckling at her display of petulance, he pulled the covers down again and nipped her ear.

“Five more minutes,” Dawn groaned. Cal relented, and she drifted off again.

What felt like five seconds later, he was shaking her awake once more. She let out another muffled groan of discontent. Cal, however, preempted her complaint. “You looked so peaceful that I let you doze for another twenty, but we really ought to get up now. You didn’t eat anything last night, so you need breakfast.”

Thoughts of food made their way to Dawn’s stomach, which loudly announced its emptiness in response. Startled out of her lethargy by her own traitorous appetite, she sat up with a humph and stretched, yawning widely.

When she opened her eyes, Cal was rummaging through his massive rucksack, and after a few moments of digging around, he tossed her a fresh change of clothes. She gratefully put on the clean clothing, thankful that he had been well-prepared. As she changed, her thoughts drifted back to the attack, so fresh on her mind yet so distant.

“So what’s the plan?” she asked, standing up.

Cal ducked under the doorframe as he led the way out. “Lee’s got some breakfast going, and the weather’s holding up nicely today,” he replied. “I think we could get some sun and fresh air, if you’re up for it.”

She stopped and tugged on his hand insistently. He turned and looked at her, meeting her inquiring gaze with his assessing one. After a few moments of searching, he seemed to understand.

“We’ll lay low for now. If everything goes well, I can ask some friends for a bit of help, and everything should be back to normal soon enough. It’ll be ok, alright?”

She cocked a curious eyebrow at him, but nodded.

Everything would be fine.

It’ll be fine.

~~~~~~~~~

Finally unburdened, Dawn stepped out of the small lavatory and turned on the faucet, quietly wondering how the bar managed to get running water inside a woodland clearing. Cal had said it was an entire city somehow stuffed into less space than should have been possible, which only raised more questions. Where did they even get water? How did magically distorted blueprints work?

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Cal’s whisper-silent footsteps echoing in the back of her mind, and she looked up at the mirror in time to see him slide up behind her.

“Why can I see you?”

“See me?” Cal asked, confused. He met her gaze in the small mirror. “My reflection?”

She nodded.

“The whole mirror thing is probably bullshit or maybe a rare fluke that got blown up into legend. I’ve never seen it before.” He leaned down a little and kissed her temple. “How are you feeling today?” he murmured softly.

Dawn rose up on her toes and returned a peck of her own. “Better.”

As they slid out of the narrow bathroom, she spotted a mattress in the corner of the basement room that hadn’t been there the day before. She nudged Cal and pointed at it inquisitively.

He glanced at it and chuckled. “Sasha insisted on ‘standing guard’ while we’re here. I figured he was joking until he brought his own bed. He’s a stubborn bastard and Cyrus didn’t really care, so that’s there for now.”

As they ascended the stairs into the kitchen, her curiosity about the big Slav was wiped away by the fragrance of fresh bacon, pancakes, and eggs. Her nose guided her over to Lee, who was plating the last of the food. He gave her one of his signature nervous smiles and a shaky nod before scurrying away to clean the pots and pans strewn about. She idly wondered if he was secretly some kind of squirrel shifter.

Dawn was hungry enough to dig in right there in the kitchen, but as Cal started picking up plates, she reluctantly did the same and followed him out, the smell of food tantalizingly close the whole time. Cyrus was once again behind the counter, drinking shot after shot from the same big bottle of booze, and she spotted Sasha hunched over a table that was comically small for him. He seemed to be poring over a chess board intensely. Dawn took advantage of his concentration to get a good long look at the fresh cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth, apparently forgotten. It dangled precariously as he mumbled to himself, yet by some strange magic never fell out.

Suddenly aware that she was very obviously staring in the middle of a very empty bar, she turned and hurried after Cal, who was settling into the same booth that they had been in the day before. After sitting herself down, she finally tore into the first food she had eaten since the borscht. After a minute or so of wolfing down food, she finally stopped for air. As she watched Cal cut into a pancake, she couldn’t hold back the question that bubbled up into her mind.

“I thought you said you don’t need food?”

In response, Cal speared a piece of pancake and put it into his mouth, chewing dramatically and savoring his pancakes with exaggerated delight. She rolled her eyes right back at him with theatricality to match. After finally swallowing, he grinned at her. “I don’t need food, but I’m not missing any opportunities to taste some of Lee’s cooking.”

“Leech!” yelled Cyrus from behind the bar.

Dawn heard Sasha audibly snort at that while Cal stuck his tongue out at his friend.

“He drink more,” Sasha loudly whispered to her while pointing at Cyrus, who pantomimed being mortally wounded by the remark.

Sasha’s comment piqued her interest once more. “He drinks your blood?” she asked.

The big Slav nodded, and she could see his attention sliding back to the chessboard. Dawn quickly followed up before he sank back into strategizing. “Does it hurt? And how can you lose that much blood?”

Sasha looked at her, mildly amused, and, for the first time since they had met, removed his cigarette. He downed his drink in one big gulp, slammed the glass down on the table, held his hand over it, opened his mouth wide, and bit down savagely on his forearm. He licked his mouth clean and held out her arm for her to see, catching stray drops of blood with the glass. Dawn watched with a mix of horror and fascination as the mangled wound rapidly stitched itself back together before her very eyes, as though she were viewing a time lapse video filmed over months. Within just a few moments, his arm was entirely healed. The demonstration left no doubt in her mind that his blood replenished plenty quickly, and judging by the self-satisfied smirk on his face, he probably didn’t give much of a damn about the pain either. Sasha looked like an uncle who had just pulled off a magic trick for his nieces and nephews, not someone who was just grievously wounded seconds ago.

“He hire me for this, you know?”

“Oh,” said Dawn. “I thought you were a chef?”

“Yes, but Lee is faster. I cook one, he cook two. He cook more, so I also feed other ways, yes?” explained Sasha. As he spoke, he stuck the cigarette back into his mouth and picked up the bloody glass, tossing it to Cyrus, who snatched it out of the air and poured a shot into it.

She nodded absently as she watched the barkeep down the blood and whiskey in one motion. Armed with yet more questions, Dawn turned back to Cal. “What is it like? Does it taste good?”

He looked up with some fried egg halfway in his mouth. “What, the pancakes?”

“No, blood.”

“It tastes like blood,” said Cal, confused. “It’s gross.”

“So becoming a vampire doesn’t magically make it taste good?”

He shrugged. “No clue, I was born this way.” He leaned over slightly and shouted at Cyrus. “Yo Cy, does blood taste better after turning?”

“Fuck no,” he shouted back.

There was a slight woosh behind her, and when she turned her head, Cyrus had appeared next to their booth, still holding his beloved bottle.

“If anything, having sharper senses makes it taste even more ass. But to answer your actual question, m’lady, yes, becoming a vampire does magically make it taste better, in a way. We can taste the life we drink, and it is positively intoxicating.”

Dawn knew that hearing something like that would have ordinarily frightened her shitless, but she felt oddly calm about it. “You can taste life?”

Both vampires nodded in response. Cyrus took another swig and answered her next question before she even asked it. “It’s like the blood’s spiked with heroin, or so I’m told. That’s why dead blood is doubly gross.”

Cal leapt on the chance to tease his friend. “Never took you for a druggie, Cy. Full of surprises eh?”

“Nah, this is my poison of choice,” said Cyrus, slamming back another shot. “Some Vagrant youngblood told me about the heroin thing a while back. Said he got himself turned looking for an easy way out of the addiction. Kid didn’t even think about getting hooked on blood until it happened.”

Dawn shook her head in amazement. “I have so many questions.”

“And he has so many answers,” said Cyrus, pointing at Cal. He sauntered off to look at Sasha’s chessboard as he poured himself another drink, leaving Cal to answer everything.

“I don’t have all that many answers,” sighed Cal. “I’ll try my best, but honestly Dad only really taught me about being a vampire, so there’s still plenty of stuff I don’t even know I don’t know.”

That was good enough for Dawn. “So how do vampires work? Because a lot of the story stuff seems wrong.”

Cal rubbed his chin a bit. “We eat life to stay alive, we’re physically stronger but a little less magically inclined, we’re cold, and just about everything else varies person to person. It’s kind of a mess.”

“It’s kind of like asking what color hair or eyes humans have,” said Cyrus as he strolled back over. “It’s all pretty random stuff that’s sort of based on what your parents had, or something like that. The spawn will differ from the sire in some ways, and you often have a weird ‘mutation’ of sorts.”

That made sense to Dawn. Wait, no, it didn’t. “You mentioned turning earlier? And Cal, you said you were born? Your mom was human and your dad was a vampire right? How does that work?”

“I’ll let you take this one, Mr. Educated,” said Cyrus.

Cal sighed and took a deep breath. “Ok, buckle up. A vampire can turn a person into a vampire like you know from the stories, but it’s also possible to give birth to one the old fashioned way, like with me. And yes, it was a very awkward Talk with my dad. Mom was too embarrassed to even be in the same room.”

“I still don’t know which bigshot sired him,” interrupted Cyrus. “My bet is that he’s actually a scion trying to protect his father’s identity.”

“What’s that?”

Cal looked over at Cyrus, who poured himself another glass to dodge the responsibility of answering. Sighing, he answered. “So basically, when a vampire sires an offspring, it can either be stronger or weaker than the sire. A lot of kin—the word we use for other vampires, by the way—a lot of kin like being all cool and mysterious with their fancy jargon, so they call the stronger ones ‘scions’ and the weaker ones ‘spawn.’ When Cy said he thinks I’m a scion, it means he thinks I was born stronger than my dad. No comment, by the way.”

Cyrus shrugged. “Eh, worth a shot.” He drank another shot.

“How about you, Cyrus? Which one are you?” she asked.

Hearing that, he sat up a little straighter and gave her a shit-eating grin. “Scion of House Fenwick, at your service,” he said with a small bow.

“I take it that being a scion is a big deal?”

“You have no idea,” he laughed.

“Power is kind of a big deal, so being born more powerful is a prestigious thing. It also helps that scions are very rare. Most new vampires are spawn.” Cal explained.

“Doesn’t that mean a lot of vampires are weaker?”

Cal snorted. “Yeah, which is why the prestigious old houses are so snooty about blood purity and stuff.”

“What are houses? Those ninja guys mentioned them.”

He gave her a concerned look.

“I’m ok, you can talk about the attack,” Dawn said with a dismissive wave of her hand.

Cal didn’t seem convinced. “You sure? You feel ok?”

“Yes, I’m fine. I don’t really feel anything.”

“That’s not fine,” said Cal, looking even more worried.

Dawn shrugged. “It’s fine enough. Really, Cal.”

He looked at her carefully again before reluctantly going back to explaining. “Houses are, at their core, loosely-related vampire gangs.”

“Harsh,” Cyrus whistled.

Cal ignored him and continued. “Peel back all the mystique and it’s essentially just a mafia. You can be born into one or join one. As for what they do, well, pretty much whatever they feel like. Malachai, for example, is a house of snobby bastards who think they’re good at magic, and they’re kind of assholes about it.”

“That last bit’s pretty true,” interjected Cyrus, “but I must dispute the characterization of all houses as gangs. The noble House Fenwick, for instance, would never stoop so low.”

“Yes, yes, I’m sure all four or five of you are very upstanding,”

“There’s dozens of us, I tell you, dozens!” Cyrus protested melodramatically.

As the two of them bantered, Lee strode out of the kitchen and hurried over to their table. His foot tapped jumpily as he stood there and gave her a nervous smile. “Good?” he asked, gesturing at their empty plates.

Dawn’s body once again chose the most inopportune moment to betray her, releasing a tremendous belch as she opened her mouth to respond. She slapped a hand over her mouth, mortified, and gave him a thumbs up. Lee seemed delighted that his cooking had been appreciated and gave her an even wider and more nervous looking smile.

“May I?” he asked, gesturing towards the dishes. As soon as she and Cal nodded, he collected all the plates and stacked them along one arm with practiced ease. He nodded pleasantly in his usual jerky manner and turned to leave. Instead of beelining for the kitchen, however, he stopped by Sasha’s table, who was still hunched over the chessboard.

“Don’t rush me,” growled the big Slav before immediately playing a move anyway. Lee adjusted his glasses and scanned the board, then moved a piece forward with his free hand.

“Checkmate.”

Lee quickly scurried back to the kitchen, leaving behind a dumbfounded Sasha who sat there staring at the board in confusion.

Dawn turned back to Cal and Cyrus, who had been watching the exchange with some amusement. “Is Lee always just like that?” she whispered.

Cyrus nodded. “He was like that when he first stepped foot in here. I figured he was just scared of being around a vampire or something, but no, I’m pretty sure he’s just eccentric like that. He seems fine though, been about the same all the years he’s worked here.”

“I think he’s gotten less jumpy,” opined Cal.

Knowing that they also thought Lee was a little strange made her feel a lot less guilty about it. Odd demeanor aside, he really did seem quite nice.

“Where were we again?” Cal asked, still slightly distracted by the sight of Sasha puzzling over how he lost.

“Houses,” she supplied.

“Right, houses. Uh, they do a lot of politicking, because they’re run by dusty old coots with nothing better to do. At the present, House Malachai and House Tirin are the most influential ones, and there’s an ever-changing coalition that tries to play kingmaker. I don’t really follow the details, so that’s about all I know.”

Those names sounded familiar to her. “Didn’t the ninja guy mention those two the other day?”

Cal nodded. “That was about when I decided he was full of shit. He basically just named the two biggest houses. It’s like guessing a random person is from Asia or Africa or something, it’s a pretty obvious shot in the dark. It didn’t sound to me like they actually knew anything.”

“So you offed them?” asked Cyrus.

Cal nodded, then looked a little guiltily at Dawn. “Sorry about that, by the way. I was planning to just incapacitate at first, but then things kind of escalated. If it were just me, it probably wouldn’t have been so messy, but you were there and—fuck, now it sounds like I’m blaming you.”

She grabbed his hand and held it comfortingly. “It’s ok, you were worried, you did what you had to.”

He stared at her hand resting on his and sighed. “I feel like I should be the one comforting you here, not the other way around.”

She shrugged. “So that guy you broke over your knee, that was trying to incapacitate?”

Cyrus leaned forward, suddenly interested. “You didn’t tell me this part, Cal! Come on, let a brother in on the juicy details.”

“Yeah, he would have survived that,” said Cal, ignoring his friend’s antics. “But then he kept going and I realized they weren’t going to stay down unless they were put down, so, well… yeah.”

“So how exactly do vampires die anyway? I didn’t see you staking them or anything,” she asked with morbid curiosity.

Cyrus laughed at her question and jostled Cal. “Come out to your girl as a vamp and the first thing she asks is how to kill you! Not a great look Cal!” he teased.

“Gotta hedge my bets,” she deadpanned.

Cyrus erupted into uproarious laughter, and even Cal smiled a little.

“In principle, we’re about the same as anything else: we die when we get hurt more than we can heal. In practice, that means removing the head or heart is enough most of the time. Hence the whole… you know. Anyway, early vampire hunters got pretty innovative. Attacking during the day, evacuating people to prevent feeding, hit-and-run, bleeding the target to death, and so on. It was a pretty effective doctrine for what they were working with.”

Dawn listened with rapt fascination as Cal explained the macabre methods of hunting down monsters of legend. It was riveting to untangle the threads of superstition, to find what was fact and what was fiction, and to hear it from a first hand source, no less. Something about understanding what she was up against felt unusually satisfying.

Her mind drifted back to the attack. “I’d imagine that with the invention of guns things are a little different now?”

Cyrus paused and raised a curious eyebrow at her, shot-glass halfway to his lips.

“One of them had a shotgun,” she explained to him.

“Yes and no,” sighed Cal. “Depends on who it is. If you’re unlucky, then guns are nothing more than flashbangs, but yeah, against most, they’re usually something of an equalizer. A well-armed farmer in, say, rural Kentucky might be able to fend off a weaker spawn if things unfold in his favor. It’s funny, I remember history lessons being incredibly boring for me before Mom started sprinkling in funny stories, like how some kin got absolutely blasted by a ship cannon this one time. It was around then that the magical side of the world was carving out space of its own.”

Dawn cocked her head. “Guns are why all of supernatural society is hiding away in extradimensional spaces? That can’t be right.”

“Nah, it ain’t the guns we’re scared of,” drawled Cyrus.

“Sorry, before you go on: can you even get drunk?” asked Dawn, staring at the rapidly emptying bottle.

He chuckled a little and shook his head. “I drink for the flavor, mostly.”

“I told you he has bad taste,” Cal whispered loudly.

“Oh shut up.”

“Anyways, you said it wasn’t the guns?” Dawn prompted.

“Right, it ain’t the guns. Basically, back in the day, humans were scared of just about everything and mostly just stayed shacked up in their caves or huts or castles or what-have-you. Every once in a while a vampire would drain a few unfortunate folks or a shifter would carry off a lass or something, but altogether, nothing really happened to people as a whole. For the longest time, this was kinda just ‘the way things were,’ and life went on. Once weapons got fancier, however, they started getting bolder and exploring more. Like Cal said, vampire hunters figured out some nasty tricks of their own. You know what a gun can do these days, so the way things were going, bloody conflict was pretty much inevitable. If it became an all-out war, it was going to become a pretty ugly slaughter with all kinds of people killing each other and most mundane humans caught in the middle. Hell, even today it would still be a slaughter. Nukes are great, but magic is greater. So anyway, for some fucking reason, the Sunwalker—”

“I haven’t explained any of the history or politics stuff yet,” interrupted Cal.

“Right. So this really old and powerful vampire went and announced that he would prefer if the world didn’t descend into chaos. A pretty controversial view at the time, especially since ‘supernaturals,’ as you put it, were positioned to come out on top. Not a lot of people took it seriously until he butchered a few houses overnight, at which point everybody figured out he wasn’t joking. Stupid to even question it, if you ask me. When someone like that tells you the sky is brown, you ask why the dirt’s so blue, ya know?”

Cyrus stopped to down another shot and wet his throat.

“Anyway, he didn’t really say much else, so everybody was left scratching their heads about what to do. Mind you, nobody had the guts to question the guy who just punctuated his point with a power vacuum the size of Eastern Europe, and the Magis—the one other guy who could realistically challenge him was pointedly silent the whole time, which everyone interpreted as implicit support. Eventually they settled on the idea of hiding away and leaning into all the crazy rumors humans fed to each other. Fast forward a few hundred years, now the world’s a much smaller place for anyone without magic. Apparently it’s half the reason some of those old maps look so hilariously wrong. So yeah, it ain’t the guns.”

Dawn blinked at him. “That’s… a lot to take in.”

Cal patted her shoulder comfortingly. “Take your time, you’re learning the entire other half of history from the ground up.”

She impatiently waited for Cyrus to finish downing another glass of liquor before diving into her next question. “So all of magical society is hiding away because one guy said so? How can one person wield that much power?”

He shrugged. “The flock flees the wolf, be they many and be it few.”

Dawn raised an eyebrow at his cryptic response.

“Nobody wants to be a casualty,” Cal supplied helpfully.

Now that made more sense. “So everyone’s scared of the boogeyman that comes for all the naughty little vampires?” she asked.

Both Cal and Cyrus burst into laughter at her analysis, and she turned to see even Sasha rumbling out a chuckle as well as he lumbered over.

“Oh, you’re a quick one, lass!” remarked Cyrus after finally catching his breath. “That’s the best way I’ve ever heard anyone put it.”

“She is smart, you should be like her,” gravelled Sasha, scratching his beard thoughtfully.

“You hear that Cal? Even Sasha agrees with me!” deflected Cyrus.

As they bickered, Sasha leaned down and looked at her. “Do not try learn beast politics, is a huge pain in ass.”

That piqued her curiosity. With all the talk about vampires, she had almost forgotten to ask about the other supernatural creatures out there. “Pain in the ass?” she asked.

“Many squabbling clans, tribes,” he explained, shaking his head. “Too much drama. Waste of time.”

“Clans?”

“Same like the houses they just explain,” said Sasha. “More related, mostly family.”

Before she could inquire further, she was jerked out of her thoughts by the sound of Cal calling her name.

“Cyrus said he needs dinner, so—”

“Dinner?”

Cyrus smirked at her confusion. “Lass, I’m nocturnal, and it’s almost ninth bell. Man’s gotta eat. Avert thy gaze, ye faint of heart.”

Her curiosity warred with a strangely muted sense of disgust. She made up her mind after only a brief moment of hesitation. “I kinda want to see this.”

Cal scooted over and put an arm over her shoulders while Sasha stuck his wrist out for Cyrus. She watched as he dramatically inspected Sasha’s proffered hand like a sommelier sampling a fine vintage. With a playful wink at her, he opened his mouth, revealing a pair of long, sharp fangs, and sank them into the artery.

Being told that vampires were real was one thing. Seeing Cal’s fangs had been another. But truly seeing another person—a charming, articulate, and playful one, at that—drinking someone’s blood? Suddenly, everything felt a little more real, as the last shreds of denial crumbled away under the weight of reality.

The sudden sound of the kitchen door flapping open made her jump, and she would have probably banged her knees on the table had it not been for Cal’s arm over her shoulders. She turned to see Lee hurrying out of the kitchen, having doffed his apron and glasses.

Sasha pointed at him. “I get you next game,” he growled.

“He says that every time,” Cal whispered in her ear.

Lee just gave a jittery laugh and a thumbs-up, then continued towards the front door. “Good night!” he called with a wave of his hand before stepping out into the golden rays of morning sun.

She and Cal both returned his wave while Cyrus stuck up a peace sign without turning to look. With the latest distraction now scurrying down the empty morning street, Dawn’s attention settled back on the macabre sight before her. After a few more quiet moments of drinking, Cyrus finally stopped and let go of Sasha’s hand. He stood and gave a mock bow.

“Thank you, thank you, and that concludes tonight’s show!”

While Sasha chortled and rolled his eyes, Dawn gingerly took his hand and looked at his wrist. Surely enough, it was entirely healed, with no sign that it had just been punctured by a set of viciously sharp teeth. She glanced over at Cyrus, trying to catch another glimpse of his razor-like fangs as he downed another shot of alcohol.

“You are too worried,” Sasha rumbled at her. “I bleed much more than this before and was fine. Cal, want some?”

Just as Cal was politely declining, the sound of the front door opening jingled through the bar. In came Lee, striding with a steady urgency that set off every alarm bell in her mind. In the blink of an eye, he was at their table.

“Boss, we have a problem,” he said without a trace of his usual shakiness. He turned his unusually stoic gaze towards Cal. “You said they were vampires in matching dark robes? All synchronized?”

Freezing winds howled and the frigid water itself began to freeze beneath the ice.

Dawn was faintly aware of Cal shooting up in alarm and rapidly questioning Lee, who answered equally swiftly. She vaguely noticed Cyrus standing up and saying something to Sasha. Her attention, however, was on the cold clarity that suffused her. A strange calmness, like she had been panicking her whole life and was thinking clearly for the first time.

“What should we do?” she asked. Her own voice sounded strange and distant.

To everybody else’s surprise, it was Lee who answered.

“I’ll hide her in the basement,” he said. “Sasha, block ingress to the kitchen, I’ll hold the stairs behind you. Cyrus and Cal, engage them head on.”

Lee’s decisive commands left everyone in stunned silence.

“Time is of the essence. Dawn, come.”

She stood, briefly meeting Cal’s eyes. Raging infernos of confusion, anger, and turmoil stared back at her. Dawn gave him a resolute nod, which he returned after a pause. She turned and jogged after Lee, and the spell was broken. Everybody else sprang into motion.

Lee took the stairs down two at a time, and she hurried to follow him into the basement. With a quick scan of the room, he picked out a corner and began shifting the large barrels with more strength than his slender frame suggested.

“Hide here, don’t make any noise, don’t come out until we come get you.”

She clambered into the hiding spot and he began to move barrels back in place. Just before pushing the last one into place, he produced a pair of knives from somewhere in his person and handed one to her through a gap. The strange balance of the weapon, the ephemeral shimmer, and the impossibly sharp edge left no doubt in her mind. This was no ordinary weapon.

“Protect yourself if you must. Fight to kill. Understood?”

Dawn gripped the knife tightly and nodded.

The last barrel moved into place.

And then he was gone.